A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER

Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland

16/02/2013 - 02/03/2013

Auckland Fringe 2013

Production Details



Fresh from successful Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe seasons, Wil Greenway is proud to present A Night To Dismember, a low budget/hi fantasy heavyhearted comedy about inadequacy, asteroids, and the shark that ate his arms.

A Night To Dismember is a miraculous story, beautifully told by a charmingly hairy idiot. It’s a sprawling fantasy comedy, replete with lyrical surreal gore, man-eating sharks and talking asteroids.

However, the bones of this piece of theatre aren’t exclusively comic. Boiled down, it is a simple story about isolation and self-loathing. The main theme is inadequacy, something young men are all too familiar with but rarely acknowledge.

The central character is a young man, bullied and ashamed. The story follows his search, and struggle to find acceptance, to find home, to be whole.

Wil Greenway is an award winning Melbourne based writer/performer and co-creator of The Lounge Room Confabulators.

A stellar storyteller.”  Themusic.com.au

“Awesomely talented.” – The Herald Sun.

Sincere and charming, the story of A Night to Dismember is at once poetic, hilarious and strangely moving.” ****1/2 – Kryztoff Raw

Sat 16 Feb – Sat 2 March (except Sundays) 7pm
VENUE:  The Basement Theatre 
DURATION:  60 mins 
TICKETS:  Adult $25, Conc $22 
BOOKING:  www.iticket.co.nz   




Dexterous ‘Big Fish’ Yarn

Review by James Wenley 25th Feb 2013

A Night to Dismember by Australian creator and performer Wil Greenway is a late Fringe entry that handily plugged a gap in The Basement’s schedule after previously advertised Truth was cancelled. Hopping across the ditch after seasons in Adelaide and Melbourne, Dismember has a true Aussie larrikin spirit and an off-beat sensibility that is worth seeking out. 

The show is performed solely by Greenway, who is a mix of sensitive artist and an unmanscaped shell (the press release calls him a “hairy idiot”). He wears bare feet, a blue shirt and shorts, and a poncho with a cartoon picture of a shark, which he uses this hide his arms, and is a bit of a silly sight. [More]  

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Sweet and surreal comedy

Review by Hannah Smith 25th Feb 2013

Wil Greenway is a Melbourne-based comic and story-teller. His surrealist one man show is a combination of flowery writing, off-the-wall humour and a straight-up likeable performance style; a mix that makes for a mad-as-a-snake monologue that is more than the sum of its parts. 

Greenway, as narrator, is a sweet and simple lad who has just had his arm bitten off by a shark.  This improbable premise is just the beginning of a series of unlikely (and oft unfortunate) events encompassing asteroids, dingoes, zombies, grapes and more blood and pus than you’d find at the ER on a Saturday night.  There are battles, parties, love and loss, friendship and family …

But the pleasure of this story is entirely in the telling. While the bizarre content is often juvenile, the writing is a sophisticated and unusual mix of peculiar poetic images and a downbeat slang and colloquialism. Much of the surprise and the comedy springs from the tension between these styles. 

Similarly Greenway’s performance negotiates the awkward territory in between heartfelt emotions and understated deadpan.  He opens the show dancing a slow pas de deux with an inflatable shark, his eyes brimming with tears, as he mouths the words to a Bon Iver song. It could be so silly, but instead, it works. 

The story is well structured and tight, and the delivery feels effortless, although there are a few unnecessary flourishes – the amputated hands and bunches of grapes that bedeck the stage are superfluous – and the switch from Greenway as the narrator character to bewigged Kev is not sufficiently signalled, sod feels like changing the rules of the game unnecessarily late in the play. 

But this is sweet and surreal comedy and great storytelling, from a likeable and intelligent performer. Get along to it. 

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